With our President and our own intelligence agencies currently in public disagreement about our greatest threats (Southern border migrants {Tweets} VS China, Russia, and North Korea {“Worldwide Threat Assessment”} ), it seems an appropriate time to list again some of the things that might threaten us from a medical point of view. I last did this on February 1, 2010.

Repeats from 2010:

Watching TV– increase chance of a cardiac death by 18%, increase chance of obesity in children by 5%.

Toys – 13,663 head injuries in children from toys seen in an ER in 2005; 251,000 toy injuries seen in ERs in 2018; 41% (102,910) were injuries of face or head.

Sleep apnea in truck drivers – Sleep apnea increases the chance of a driving accident by about 100%; 17% of truck drivers have sleep apnea

Brain cancer from cell phones– no evidence for it in 2010; “maybe” in 2019; very heavy users over 10 years in Sweden had an increased incidence of acoustic neuroma (non-cancerous growth on hearing nerve).

Contaminated herbal supplements – more studies continue to find supplements with incorrectly labeled ingredients and/or unlabeled contaminants. Most of these supplements are for sexual enhancements, body building, or weight loss.

Vaping of nicotine products – “Unknown risks” noted in August 1, 2009; Still unknown over the long term, but of more concern because of the alarming explosion of use by junior high students and 21% of twelfth-graders.( an increase of 1.3 million teens just since 2017) (NEJM 2018 Dec 17)

New threats:

Gun Violence – I am surprised that this wasn’t in my 2010 list since it seems like we have been talking about this threat for years, but it was before the Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas school massacres . Wikipedia has a handy list of 122 world-wide school massacres by country, dates, number killed, etc. Do you remember what the auto industry said in the past regarding proposed laws requiring seat belts? – “Cars don’t kill people; people kill people.” I don’t either. Someone must have made that up to make a point. Check my two previous blogs (2015 and 2018) for the comparison of “the frog sitting in the gradually heating up water” with our pace of achieving gun safety. (“By Degrees”, Markerelli.com)

Climate Change – Extreme weather events and raging wildfires in California have caused some to label climate change as a “Health Emergency”. Accompanying an article describing the stress on emergency medical care resources and the significant contribution to air pollution caused by the California wildfires, a lead editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine stated: “Climate change is already adversely affecting human health and health systems, and projected climate change is expected to alter the geographic range and burden of a variety of climate-sensitive health outcomes and to affect the functioning of public health and health care systems.”

Large Gathering in Any Public Place – During a break in the interminable Boston TV coverage of the Patriots prior to Super Bowl LIII one channel showed a segment on the security planned for the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. It was impressive; ten miles of fencing, prohibition of drones, helicopter fly-overs, fully-armed policemen, and more-fully-armed soldiers (always shown walking in pairs). Nothing new to us since September 11th. Just another reminder, but now at least we realize it is not actually foreign “terrorists” that have caused the most havoc in our country.

Enough about threats. Any good news?

Salt-free diet not necessary for heart failure patients- A review of 9 studies showed “a paucity of evidence supporting low-sodium diets for patients with heart failure”. The recommended first step is to “… retreat from an unbridled and potentially harmful insistence on rigorous sodium restriction” in these patients. (JAMA Internal Med 2018 Dec; 178)

Vitamin D supplements of no benefit to preventing cancer or cardiovascular disease –A study of 25,800 participants over 50 years old followed for 5 years showed that daily 2000 IU of Vitamin D “did not keep the doctor away” compared to placebo. This is good news for people spending money on vitamin D supplements for this purpose. (NEJM January 3, 2019:380;1)

Stand-up desks at work reduces sitting times – See “Watching TV” above, but unfortunately there are no studies that standing does anything but improve psychological well being of the worker with some work-related benefits. When arising from the sitting position, the authors recommended doing some physical activity. Standing alone is not any healthier. (BMJ 2018 Oct10:363)

Causes of Deaths of U.S. Children in 2016Firearms-related deaths are #2, just behind motor vehicle crashes. 60 % of the three thousand plus firearms-related deaths were homicides. 35% were suicides. Both motor vehicle and firearms-related deaths percentages have increased every year since 2013. The ratio of causes of firearms-related deaths of adults (over 20 yo.) was the opposite: 62% suicide and 37% homicide. Cancer was #3 at 9% of all children deaths both years.

Continued resistance to gun safety reform legislation has been called “another example of U.S. public health intervention being cast as an attack on individual liberty.”

Driver safety being the other example, of course.

Benefits of Aspirin in Elderly or DiabeticsThree studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine this October showed that daily low dose aspirin provided no benefit to the elderly against all types of deaths, cancer-related deaths, dementia, physical disability, or cardiovascular events. They did reveal an increase in non-fatal significant bleeding events. 3% of those taking the aspirin suffered such an event compared to 2% taking the placebo.

A fourth study published in the same issue appeared to show that low dose aspirin reduced the incidence of non-cardiac vascular events in adults (all ages) with diabetes. The percentages of adverse bleeding events (mostly gastrointestinal) was again 1% higher in those taking the aspirin. In contrast to other studies the use of aspirin did not reduce the incidence of gastrointestinal cancer.

Immigrant Children in DetentionThe latest independent estimate of children held in 9 U.S. centers is 15,000. The Department of Home Security does not publish statistics, and, in fact, is not too sure itself how many they have. There have been two instances when Home Security could not account for 1400-1500 children. Most of the children are held in large centers with up to a thousand children. The length of stay has been from 104 to 240 days. Currently nearly 300 are children whose parents have already been deported, so that their eventual disposition is up for grabs.

The recent deaths of two Guatemalan children in detention (one 7 yo. and the other 8 yo.) remain under investigation, but in reading between the lines I suspect that they were caused by flu-like illnesses in dehydrated, malnourished, and tired kids, i.e. eminently preventable deaths.

More About the Southern Border ImmigrantsThe number of people arrested trying to illegally cross the Mexican border has been decreasing each year since 2005 (President Bush) and is now at the lowest point since 1971. The number of “people in families” arrested monthly during the same period has increased 2.5X from under 10,000 to 25,172 this November. Hence, one reason for the recent development of an “humanitarian crisis”. The number of arrests of “unaccompanied children” has remained the same at about 5,000 per month

The Mexican border is the primary entry point for cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine which is mostly carried by trucks through official border crossings.

Texas is the only state that has statistics on crimes by immigrants (the federal agencies have none). In 2015 the relative rates of crimes per 100,000 residents in Texas analyzed by the Cato Institute were:

Probiotics for Diarrhea/Effects on Your MicrobiomeTwo recent very large studies in children showed that twice daily doses of a certain probiotic did NOT shorten the duration of diarrhea or reduce the number of bowel movements per day. This is yet another study showing no real benefit from probiotics, but believers point out that maybe they were using the “wrong” probiotic.

In other probiotic news: In contrast, another recent study suggests that probiotics can change a person’s own gut microbiome in such a way to make the person’s gut microbiome LESS protective against illnesses.

The Microbiome and ObesityA study of multi-generational Southeast Asian immigrants showed that soon after arrival in the U.S. the diversity of their gut microbiome began to decrease to the level resembling the less-varied microbiome of European Americans. “Just living in the U.S. reduced their microbiome diversity by 15%.” At the same time their obesity rate spiked! Previous studies indicated that the more diverse gut microbiome in people in less developed countries protected them from developing metabolic diseases like diabetes.

We Are All Getting HeavierIn the U.S. both the average man and the average woman gained 24 pounds from 1960 to 2002. By 2016 men had gained an average of 8 pounds more; women 7 pounds. Both white and black men increased an inch in waist size. White woman increased their waist size by 2 inches; black women reduced theirs by an inch. The average American man is now 5 feet 9 inches, weighs 198 pounds, and has a 40 inch waist. The average American woman is 5 feet 4 inches, weighs 171 pounds, and has a 39 inch waist. Both have a BMI near or at 30, the “high end of overweight.” These results are from actual measurements because “ people tend to overreport their height and underreport their weight.”

Editorial note: Our local YMCA “free sign-up day” on January 1 was mobbed. On January 6 the men’s locker room was quite crowded. Overheard from the next cubicle: “Just wait 3 weeks. There’ll be plenty of room again.” Update in the near future.

Unsafe Toys for Christmas 2018
World Against Toys Causing Harm or W.A.T.C.H. has just released its 5th annual list of “worst toys for the holiday season” picked for their potential cause of choking, eye injury, or other safety hazard. In 2016 there were 240,000 toy-related injuries. During 2014 to 2016 there were 35 toy-related deaths. The top ten worst toys this year include:

Stomp Ultra Rocket – “fires up to 200 ft. in the air if not stopped by an eye”

Lower Your Prostate Cancer Risk by Riding a Bicycle
Men who did long-term vigorous exercise like biking, swimming, or running had a 25-30% less chance of developing advanced or lethal prostatic cancer. Exercise even lowered the risk for those men who have a specific genetic subtype of prostatic cancer seen in half of the deaths. “The influence of insulin, growth factors, and other metabolic factors” is thought to be the link between exercise and the lower risk according to this Harvard School of Public Health study of 49,000 healthy men between 1986 and 2012.

Many Nutritional Supplements Include Contaminants
Half of U.S, adults take some sort of nutritional supplements spending about $30 billion annually, and the FDA is prohibited by law to evaluate supplements for safety or efficacy PRIOR to marketing. The FDA can issue post-marketing warnings about adulterants. One study from 2007 to 2016 identified 776 supplements, mostly for sexual enhancements, weight loss, or muscle building, with either adverse events or consumer complaints,. Of the 28 products that had received two or more “FDA warnings” 19 continued to be sold. In another study of 21 supplements with “FDA warnings” because of one or more unapproved stimulants, 12 were still available in 2007 and 9 of the 12 still contained the same stimulants. Q.E.D.; FDA warnings have little effect in protecting consumers from potentially harmful effects of contaminants in nutritional supplements.

Does Drinking More Water Reduce Bladder Infections in Women? Yes, if they had 3 or more bladder infections in the previous year and are drinking LESS than the recommended 1500 ml. (4 water bottles) a day. If they doubled the amount of water to 3000 ml. (8 water bottles) a day the reoccurrence of a bladder infection is reduced from 3.2 a year to 1.7 a year (at least in Bulgarian women). If they were already drinking over the 1500 ml. minimum a day increasing the amount had no effect on recurrence. [All the U.S. women I know, at least in Barnstable county, take a bottle of water with them when they’re just going to the post office.]

One-half of Obese Adolescents Started Being Overweight When 3 – 5 Years Old (at least in 50,000 healthy German children)
Most of the children who were obese at age 6 were obese as adolescents. Rates of obesity were higher in children with overweight or obese mothers. “It is an ominous sign that the number of American children with the most recalcitrant forms of obesity has increased progressively during the past 10 years.” This study suggests that physicians should start nutritional counseling if exaggerated weight gain occurs after age 2! (NEJM October 4, 2018)

Do Not Use Infant Walkers
Despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics has long called for infant walkers to be banned in the U.S. as they are in Canada, infant walkers are still sold here. An average of 9,000 infants a year under 15 months of age are treated in our ERs with head or neck injuries when infant walkers go down household stairs with an infant in them. The AAP says that “there is no advantage of the walker to the infant and parents should not use them.”

A Chilling Aftermath of Our Latest Gun Violence
A friend of mine has a brother who worships at that Pittsburgh synagogue. He was not there for the October massacre, but sat Shemira (literally a bodyguard) for a member who was. After Shemira the brother called my friend to say that he had bought a gun and obtained a carry permit. My friend was incredulous, and asked him, “When are YOU going to carry a gun?” His brother’s answer, “Only when I pray”.

A Prayer for Our Times
The mid-term elections are over, but the political hyperbole and acrimony, especially from the President to the press, is not. On Veterans’ Day we sang “America the Beautiful” in church, and I was struck by the relevance of the unappreciated second verse:

A baby aspirin a day does not necessarily keep the doctor away.
Daily low dose (81 mg. or a baby tablet) aspirin protects you from having your SECOND heart attack, not your first one. Another recent study confirmed that aspirin gives no such protection to someone who has a normal heart history. A baby aspirin is of NO benefit for primary cardiovascular disease prevention. (Despite these repeated studies many of us continue on our merry way of taking a daily baby aspirin in hopes of preventing “the big one.” )

Ritalin is apparently better than nothing . . . and lots of other things.
ADHD (Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder) in school children is not helped much by non-drug therapy. A 2011 review of 54 studies showed little lasting effectiveness of neurofeedback, child behavioral training, parent training, cognitive behavioral (“talk”) therapy, dietary changes, or herbal and Omega fatty acid supplements when compared to the usual psychostimulant drugs like Ritalin. (This lack of evidence of any benefits from non-drug treatment of this common condition is disappointing. The reviewers themselves call for additional studies.)

There’s An App For It – Among things that your smartphone can do are:

Record and transmit a electrocardiogram of your heart rate and rhythm.

Ask questions to determine whether you are slipping into a depression, and send a text message to your therapist.

Have a trained counselor call you within an hour of you opening up a bluetooth equipped HIV self-test kit to interpret the results for you.

Adjust the volume and sound characteristics of the hearing aid in your ear.

Give you an inaccurate pulse oximetry reading if using a non-FDA approved monitoring app. (In fact, the FDA faced with the existence of about 400,000 health and wellness apps has decided to review 20 apps a year that are directly related to gathering and transmitting clinical data. – FitBits are not included in that category)

Got your flu shot yet?
This year the CDC is recommending the quadrivalent flu vaccine for everyone over 6 months old who does not have a medical contraindication. No particular vaccine brand is recommended over the others. People with egg allergies can safely receive any of the vaccines. ( The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pouring money into research efforts to reduce the potential effects of one of their greatest fear, another flu pandemic.)

Parents know best.
Children sleep better if fed earlier in life. Official pediatric policy used be to start solids at 6 months. Many parents think that starting at 3 months causes longer sleep periods and less sleep problems. A study of 1300 breast-fed infants in England and Wales showed that the parents are right. Duh! (Pediatricians used to recommend starting certain solid foods at even a later age because of potential food allergies. That is no longer true.)

The “other shoe” on probiotics.
The current wisdom that “probiotics are harmless and can benefit everyone” is not necessarily true. The exploding volume of research on our “microbiome” (the bacteria in our intestines) reveals that the bacterial mix in our intestines is unique to each individual (like a fingerprint) and is “good” for us in its natural state. Probiotics can change that mix, and one study shows that some of us have guts that are not only “resistant” to probiotics, but that alteration of our natural mix by probiotics could delay recovery from some illnesses.

Why your visit to your doctor’s office isn’t the same as the “old days”.
It is estimated that a typical primary care physician needs 22 hours a day to address all of the preventive, acute, and chronic needs of an average patient panel of 2,500 patients. This includes all of the insurance-prescribed, electronically embedded (in the electronic medical record – EMR) quality measures tied to the reimbursement of the physician. (This is one reason we patients are filling out more questionnaires, clicking on more boxes on a screen, and spending more time with nurse practitioners and physician assistants when we go to the doctor’s office. “The doc can’t do it all any more.”)

Watch out. More un-immunized children are on their way to school.
A 2017 CDC telephone survey indicates that about 100,000 children in the U.S. born in 2015 and 2016 have not received vaccination against the 14 disease for which shots are recommended. This is an increase from a similar study of children born in 2011.

Too fat? Just take a pill. . . A new kind of pill.
A capsule with a long thin plastic tube is swallowed by the patient. Once in the stomach air is pushed down the thin plastic tube, the capsule expands into a balloon filling 1/3 of the stomach, the patient has sensation of having a full stomach, and the thin tube breaks off and is withdrawn. In about three months the stomach balloon disintegrates, deflates, and is passed out in the stool. It has been approved in Europe and is being tested in the U.S. hoping for FDA approval in 2020. Another start-up company is hoping that their capsule filled with gel that expands in the stomach juices and accomplishes the same thing will also be approved. ( The gel-filled capsule is a bit of deja vu for me. As a chubby pre-teen trying to lose weight, I remember taking a tablespoon of “weight-loss powder” a half-hour before a meal, waiting to let it expand in my stomach, and feeling less hungry so I ate less. I forget its name, but I do clearly remember the time I was in a particular hurry, ate too soon after the dose, and promptly emptied my over-filling stomach onto my shoes.)

A timely tip for women.
With all the surprise disclosures of “good men” exhibiting past sexual harassment acts and even sexual assaults, how can a woman feel confident that the man she is with is not the aggressive type? A recent study suggests you can just look at his hands. The shorter the index finger is compared to the ring finger, the more aggressive the man may be. This is from a study of 300 Canadian men and women. No correlation of personality to finger lengths was found in women. Researchers associate this finding with “the amount of testosterone that babies are exposed to in utero”. ( Or could it be related to being born North of the 49th parallel?! )

“The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.” — Julia Child

Pizza, even bad pizza, makes you feel good.A recent study of 10 men in Finland (there’s the Finns again!) found evidence of high level of natural painkillers in their brains after eating a pizza. Their opioid receptors literally lit right up after the pizza! Even more surprising, the pizza did not have to be good to show that opioid receptor activity. If the same nutritional value was ingested in a “nutritional goo” form, the brains had even more opioid-like activity. So, the pleasurable feeling after eating pizza has nothing to do with how good it was. Speculations abound about a “full stomach feeling” or a “return of energy” as being the cause of the source of release of this endogenous opioid-like substance. (Journal of Neuroscience, November 2017)

Coffee can be part of a healthy diet.
A mega-review of over 200 studies of coffee consumption revealed that coffee consumption was associated with more benefit than harm, at all levels of consumption. Coffee contains more than 1000 bioactive compounds, including antioxidants, so this review was timely. The largest risk reduction of adverse health outcomes was found in those people who drank 3 to 4 daily cups of coffee (caffeinated OR decaffeinated!). Death rates from any cause, death rates from heart disease, and death rates from associated cardiovascular diseases were 15-19% lower in coffee drinkers. High coffee consumers had a 18% lower risk for cancer while lower consumers still had a 13% lower risk compared to non-coffee drinkers. The only adverse effects of coffee consumption were found in women: some higher risks for pregnancy loss, more preterm births, more low birth weight infants, and more bone fractures. The editor of the journal, anticipating our excitement at this news, counselled that “clinicians should not recommend coffee consumption on the basis of this review.” And, oh yeah . . . this mega-review only included studies of black coffee. If you add sugar, milk, or any other ingredient to your coffee . . . “never mind”. (BMJ 2017)

Fecal transplants now come in pill form.Selected cases of intractable diarrhea caused by recurrent infection with C. difficile (a bacteria that overgrows in the intestine after multiple courses of antibiotics) have been treated successfully by “transplanting” other people’s normal feces (material that contains normal symbiotic bacteria) into the patient’s intestines by infusing liquid fecal material either through a nasogastric tube or a colonoscope. In a study of 116 participants with recurrent, intractable diarrhea 96% were cured by the administration of the fecal material in a pill form. That is good news, but I hope that I won’t ever have to take that pill. (JAMA, Nov. 2017)

Low-dose aspirin does not raise your risk for intracranial bleeding.
A whole lot of people take daily low-dose aspirin (83 mg. – a baby aspirin) in the belief that it will reduce their risk of a fatal heart attack. The evidence actually shows that the preventative effect of low-dose aspirin is true only if you are trying to prevent your second heart attack; i.e.. the data supports its preventive effect in those people who already have clinical heart disease. Much of the general population, including me, is taking low dose aspirin in hope that it will work similarly for them. The only problem is that aspirin is an anti-thrombotic agent (it makes platelets “slippery” so that platelets don’t clump to start a clot). Such an effect raises a concern about spontaneous bleeding, particularly in the brain. A study of 400,000 people over 5 years in an established U.K. database showed that the incidence of brain hemorrhage was not significantly higher in those on the low-dose aspirin compared to those who took none. Remember also that if you have been taking low-dose aspirin for some time and decide to stop, your risk of spontaneous adverse clotting events may increase over the next 6-12 months. (Neurology, Nov. 2017)

Pasta is back!. . . sort of.An Italian study (no conflict of interest there I’m sure) of 23,000 Italians revealed that the pasta lover had lower BMIs, the gold standard for definition of overweight. The researchers tout that pasta is not “just empty carbs”, but contains protein (6.7 grams per cup) and, if whole wheat pasta, it has iron, folic acid, and several B vitamins. The Italian study results are similar to a U.S. study of about 1,800 middle-aged adults, but there are a couple of caveats to consider. Italians eat much less pasta than we do in a meal because they consider it a first course, not the whole meal. The participants in the Italian study consumed an average of 3 oz. (86 grams) of pasta each meal. The study researchers did not name the “ideal amount” of pasta to eat per meal, but did note that those Italians who ate more pasta than the average tended to be obese. As we have said before, losing weight usually comes down to (no pun intended) taking in fewer calories rather than picking different kinds of calories to eat.

“You can’t outrun a bad diet”

It appears that an African native chasing a wounded giraffe through the bush and over the plains for 12 hours in order to get food for himself and his family burns the SAME NUMBER OF CALORIES per day as the modern couch potato. Researchers measuring the urine excretion of two radioactive isotopes of water ingested by the subjects (the “gold standard” of measuring energy expenditure) have confirmed this fact as postulated previously by several studies. These African hunter-gatherers burned about 2,600 calories a day, about the same as average adults in present day U.S. and Europe.

The researchers were looking to measure the size of the “energy shortfall” in Westerners to explain the global rise of obesity. They found none. In fact, another review of almost a hundred (98) world-wide studies of energy expenditure (calories burned per day) revealed that “the persons with all the modern conveniences have similar energy expenditures to those with more physically demanding lives in less developed countries.”Therefore, “obesity is a disease of gluttony, not sloth.”

Physical activity does NOT cause weight loss, but exercise can help prevent weight gain. A JAMA 2010 study of 34,000 middle-aged U.S. women showed that 60 minutes a day of moderate exercise (walking) prevented weight gain in those on a normal diet who had previously lost weight through dieting.

As someone who collected articles aboutbad things happening to joggers to justify my ignoring Society’s “persistent call to go running”, this is music to my ears. The evidence that exercise, including just walking, is good for you is absolutely true and well accepted. It just doesn’t help you lose weight. Again, as someone who has made a resolution every January to lose weight by going to the gym only to peter out by the end of every March, this made me feel less inadequate, or at least less guilty.

Humans have a fixed rate of energy expenditure which is independent of their physical activity. A subsequent study of 300 people wearing Fit-bits showed that those doing moderate activity(some exercise and always taking the stairs) burned only 200 more calories than couch potatoes. People doing intense physical activity did NOT burn more calories than the moderately active people. Again, the African bushman burns the SAME number of calories walking a mile as does the Westerner.

Studies of energy expenditure in zoo animals compared to animals in the wild reveal the same constancy. How can this be? No one really knows, but the authors speculate that since human energy expenditure is quite constant (and constrained), we modern adults who are not chasing wounded giraffes over the veld have evolved metabolic adaptations that spend our calories on supporting brain functions (the oxygen you take in with every fourth breath is needed just to feed your brain) , running our inflammatory processes (exercise may prevent inflammation by diverting energy from it), producing more and bigger babies, and living longer. But, I am not sure that I am any smarter than the African bushman who lives to 70 in his world, and many of them do.

Humans have learned to cook which increases the caloric value of many foods and makes them more efficiently digested.
We also have evolved to be fat. Our tendency to store fat is probably an adaptation for surviving lean times.
During lean times our survival is enhanced by us sharing what food there is.
Apes do not share.

“Exercise to stay healthy and vital;focus on diet to look after your weight.”

The incidence (number of new cases per year) of dementia in the U.S. is apparently declining.

The Framingham Heart Study which has been monitoring 5,200 adults and 5,000 of their off spring since 1975 revealed in February 2016 that the decrease in the rate of new dementia cases was about 20% per decade. The FHS statistics are based on a variety of data sources including questionnaires, medical records, and some direct examinations.

A more recently published study using direct testing of a larger (21,000), more diverse, over 65 year old (average age: 75) U.S. population reveals that the incidence of dementia decreased from 11.6% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012. In case you want to “study up” for your test, it included:recalling 10 nouns immediately and then a little laterserially subtracting 7 from 100counting backwards from 20

Those with more years of education had a lower risk of dementia. (better “test takers” obviously).
Diabetes increased the risk for developing dementia by 39%. Ominously the incidence of diabetes in this studied population increased greatly from 9% in 1990 to 21% in 2012. Despite that, the overall incidence of dementia did decrease. Nobody knows why.

The Framingham Heart Study findings showed that obesity increased the risk of dementia. In this study obese people had a 30% lower risk for dementia, and in fact, underweight people had a 2.5 fold increase in their risk!

As Dr. Denis Evans, one of the study’s authors, said, “Its very complex.”

Speaking of obesity, the holiday eating season is upon us. Almost all of us expect to put on a little weight. Three scientists from three different countries (Finland, France, and U.S.) nicely graphed the average weight gains by month in three countries (Japan, Germany, and U.S.). No surprise. The Christmas season was the winner in all three countries, but Germany was the leader.

That Golden Week spike in Japan at the end of April and first week of May is when 5 of the 9 official Japanese holidays are clustered and most people take the whole week off. (NEJM 375:12 Sept. 22, 2016, p. 1201)

Though the graph is impressive with its spikes and valleys the average weight gain in the U.S. measured in the 10 days after Christmas was only 0.7% or 1.33 pounds; much, much less than the 7-13 pound gains per week or two reported by some cruise ship travelers.

The bad news is that even though half of your holiday weight gain is lost shortly after the holidays, half of the weight gain remains until the summer … and beyond, which resets your baseline weight for the next year.
Oh, well. “Life is short. Have dessert first.”